Jan. 01--A Scranton man apparently took city police's "Be Part of the Solution" slogan too literally over the weekend, posing as a city detective and radioing in phony reports.
And the charges of impersonating a public servant and disorderly conduct filed against Thomas Sedorovitz after the Saturday night incident apparently did not make clear to him the distinction between sworn officer and civilian.
About 24 hours after his release on $5,000 unsecured bail Sunday, the 20-year-old Pine Street man walked into the First Liberty Bank at 1300 Wyoming Ave. shortly before 10 a.m. Monday and identified himself as a city police detective, acting Scranton Police Chief Carl Graziano said.
When asked for identification, Mr. Sedorovitz told a teller "absolutely not" and walked out of the branch, Chief Graziano said.
Patrol officers picked up Mr. Sedorovitz a few blocks away minutes after the incident and filed a citation for disorderly conduct against him.
Chief Graziano said the Lackawanna County District Attorney's office had begun the process to revoke Mr. Sedorovitz's bail from the Saturday night incident, which took place outside his home at 501 Pine St.
There, at about 11:40 p.m., officers responded to a report of a man using a police radio and identifying himself with badge number 594 claiming he had a man down on the ground and needed backup, according to a criminal complaint.
When dispatchers told the man, who claimed to be "working with detectives tonight," that his badge number did not check out, he said he dropped his radio in a foot chase the previous night and may have damaged it, compromising its officer identification function, the complaint states.
Officers arrived at that point and asked Mr. Sedorovitz what he was doing.
"I'm doing my part to help out," he responded, according to the complaint.
Officers then asked Mr. Sedorovitz, who had a handheld police radio on him, if he had been using it to transmit over police frequencies.
"Yes, I'm doing my part," he told them, according to the complaint.
It was not clear Monday if Mr. Sedorovitz was actually attempting to arrest or provide first aid to anyone.
He was then taken into custody and later arraigned on the impersonating and disorderly conduct charges, though he was granted $5,000 unsecured bail.
A preliminary hearing on the first incident was scheduled for Jan. 7.
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Copyright 2013 - The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.
